The Rev. John Ater told Henry County Middle School students faith and hope proved his greatest survival tools as a ‘Lost Boy’ of Sudan.

HCMS students recently read A Long Walk to Water, by Linda Sue Park, which gives two narratives, 23 years apart, following the lives of two youths that face adversity due to political unrest and a lack of natural resources.

Ater came to the states at 20. He recalled vividly how Sudanese rebels killed young boys as a measure of wiping out their future enemy.

The house in Henry County historically known as the Highlands in the rolling hillside just south of Floyd’s Fork and KY 22 was once home to a family whose lives intertwined with Kentucky’s birth as a state and the bloody hunting ground.

Rowlett farms 1,000 acres of land with his family. Rowlett is on the board of directors of the Southeast United Dairy Industry Association, which recently featured Rowlett in the ‘Dedicated to Dairy’ multimedia campaign. The campaign aims to inform the public about life for the dairy farmer and their stewardship for land and livestock. The SUDA website offers blogs from real life farming families, video interviews and family recipes. For Rowlett the campaign offers much more.

When Michelle Adkins turned on the news Dec. 13, 2011, she was moved to act.

More than 200 animals had been seized from Terri and Kenneth Smith, and Adkins wanted to help.

“It blew my mind,” Adkins said of the television news footage.

The Smiths both faced 218 counts of 2nd degree animal cruelty. One week after the raid by Henry County Animal Control — who alleged that the Smiths were operating a puppy mill — Kenneth Smith killed himself.

A Waddy man who lost a battle in the state Court of Appeals on Dec. 21 may not be giving up his fight to have his doctor held accountable for amputating his penis.

The attorney for Phillip Seaton said Wednesday that he may go to the Kentucky Supreme Court, if necessary, to seek relief against Dr. John Patterson of Frankfort, who twice has been vindicated for deciding to amputate Seatons’ penis during a circumcision in 2007.

The Kentucky State Police are renewing their effort to solve unsolved cases by asking the public for assistance with leads. In 2010, KSP distributed more than 8,000 decks of playing cards to prisons across Kentucky depicting unsolved case information.

The deck of cards highlighted 52 unsolved Kentucky homicide or missing person cases. Since that time, three of those cases have been solved.

KSP hopes that sharing information with the public again will provide fresh leads that can help solve these cases and bring some closure to families.

Terri Smith — the Henry County woman accused in December 2011 of more than 200 counts of animal cruelty — has filed two lawsuits against the county and Animal Control Officer Dan Flinkfelt.

Smith is suing the county for the wrongful death of her husband, Kenneth, as well as what the suit claims was the county’s failure to sell Smith’s animals at fair market value, intentional infliction of emotional distress, harassment and unwarranted humiliation.